With the election over and potential threats to the CHIPS Act coming from victorious Republicans, the White Houe is reportedly racing “to get CHIPS Act money out the door” before the Biden presidency ends in January.
A Bloomberg story reports that two chips giants, TSMC and GlobalFoundries, have finished talks over CHIPS Act awards.
The companies “have finished negotiating binding agreements for billions of dollars in grants and loans to support US factories, people familiar with the matter said. The deals, announced as tentative agreements earlier this year, come as the Biden administration races to get Chips and Science Act money out the door before the end of its term in January.”
Bloomberg noted that it’s not known when the agreements will be signed and the incentives and other details involved will be unveiled, though the award amounts are approximately “in line with the preliminary agreements,” sources told Bloomberg.
The package announced in April for TSMC has $6.6 billion in grants and up to $5 billion in loans for construction of three semiconductor factories in Arizona. Announced in February, GlobalFoundries’ agreement includes $1.5 billion in grants and up to $1.6 billion in loans for a new plant in Malta, NY, and for expansions of facilities in New York and Vermont.
The CHIPS Act was enacted with tens of billions in funding designed to renew semiconductor production in the U.S., including advanced chips used for HPC-AI, and reduce dependence on fabs based in Taiwan and other Asian countries. According Bloomberg, nearly $3 billion in funding remains to be allocated, which “means it’s extremely likely that some of the funding will be finalized under the leadership of Donald Trump,” Bloomberg reported.
The article cited Trump calling the CHIPS Act as “so bad” and reported that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said he wants to “streamline” the bill. In response, “industry officials are anxious to get things squared away as quickly as possible, …to allow money to start flowing…”
